NEW YORK —Goldman Sachs, arguably the most storied investment bank on Wall Street, has been compared to a money-sucking vampire squid and called the evil empire of finance. On Wednesday, it got an entirely different kind of black eye — delivered by one of its own.

Greg Smith, an executive director at the bank, resigned with a blistering editorial that accused the bank of losing its “moral fiber,” putting profits ahead of customers’ interests and dismissing customers as “muppets.”

The decline of the bank’s culture, he wrote, threatened the bank’s survival after 143 years.

The stinging editorial, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” appeared in The New York Times, was the talk of Wall Street and was widely circulated online. Smith became a trending topic on Twitter, the social-network website.

Goldman swiftly issued a three-sentence statement disagreeing with Smith. “In our view,” the bank said, “we will only be successful if our clients are successful. This fundamental truth lies at the heart of how we conduct ourselves.”

Smith worked for Goldman in London, but the bank did not provide further details.

Smith — identified by The Times as head of the company’s United States equity-derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa — wrote that he attended sales meetings in which helping clients make money was not part of the discussion.

“If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all,” he wrote.

More in Business

VF Corp, the holding company for popular outdoor brands such as The North Face, JanSport and Smartwool, announced Monday will move its global headquarters to Denver, bringing 800 high-paying jobs to the city.

"The optics are so obvious to so many people in this era of #MeToo," Steven Silvers said of Innovation Pavilion. "Their response to this crisis is going to have a far lengthier and more damaging effect on the company than if they handled it more directly."

The work, which ranges from remodeling some restaurants to scarping off and completely rebuilding older structures, is part of a $6 billion modernization effort McDonald's will roll out across the U.S. by the end 2020.